Meanwhile, on Sakapachi Island.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Each collision between the two figures triggered an explosive surge of air.
Kuzan's ice fist and Gern's tremor fist clashed dozens of times within a hundredth of a second, with Armament Haki sparks raining down like a storm.
Frozen waves were shattered into ice shards as soon as they rose.
And the rocks Gern crushed, before they could land, were frozen into meteorite-like ice bullets, which Kuzan then sent flying towards his opponent's face with a whip kick.
"Bang!" Gern tilted his head to dodge, the ice bullet grazed his ear and exploded behind him, its scattered fragments drawing a line of blood on his neck.
He seized the opportunity to exploit Kuzan's opening as he withdrew his move, sweeping out his right palm, imbued with tremors, like a blade.
Kuzan's pupils constricted; he had no time to elementalize.
"Ice Mirror · Substitution!"
"Whoosh!" Gern's fingertips pierced through the ice sculpture, and Kuzan's true body instantly appeared in the ice mirror ten meters away.
The ice sculpture at the original position was shattered into dust, and the real Kuzan had a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
At the same time, Gern's five fingers suddenly splayed open.
Pale energy, imbued with high-frequency vibrations, coiled around his fingertips, tearing the air between his fingers.
"Heaven Quake · Rend!" Five parallel spatial rifts suddenly appeared, like invisible blades slashing across the battlefield.
Everything in the path of the rifts was neatly split in two, the cross-sections smooth as a mirror.
Upon seeing this, Kuzan's body instantly elementalized, transforming into an ice mist and retreating rapidly.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!" The five rifts arrived in an instant, silently slicing the ground where Kuzan had stood into six pieces.
Fine residual tremor waves lingered at the cross-sections, making even the air continuously tremble.
However, Gern's offensive did not stop; he began to run quickly, and eight pure white vibrating spheres condensed around him, their surfaces covered in a web of cracks.
"Heaven Quake · Eight Extremes Orb!"
The eight spheres flew from his hands, tracing eerie arcs in the air, locking onto Kuzan's aura like living beings, encircling him from different angles!
Kuzan's eyes narrowed, he crossed his arms, and extreme cold energy surged wildly.
"Thousandfold Wall!" Icebergs rose abruptly, layer upon layer, forming an impenetrable, absolute defense.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The moment the first Eight Extremes Orb struck the iceberg, a shockwave of spatial tremor exploded, and spiderweb-like cracks erupted on the ice surface.
Immediately after, the second and third followed, a chain of explosions transforming the entire iceberg domain into a chaotic tremor hell!
Ice shards danced wildly in the shockwave, and Kuzan's figure flickered in and out of view at the center of the explosion.
Gern's lips curved into a cold arc, and he muttered, "It's really hard to track the movements of an opponent of this caliber with Observation Haki."
However, the next second...
"Ice Age · Burial!" Extreme cold air erupted from the center of the explosion, and Kuzan's figure burst through the dust.
His right arm completely covered in Armament Haki, he slammed it down fiercely towards Gern's face!
Gern's pupils suddenly contracted, and he crossed his arms to block.
"Bang!!!"
A terrifying shockwave swept across the entire area, and both figures were simultaneously sent flying backward, plowing hundreds of meters of furrows in the ice.
As the smoke cleared, Kuzan slowly stood up, ice crystals flaking from his uniform, while Gern had a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, yet he smiled even more wildly.
"Now that's more like it!" He wiped away the blood, and tremor particles once again coiled around his palm, compressing into a pure white sphere, as if he held a supernova about to explode.
He then violently hurled it towards Kuzan—"Heaven Quake · Meteor!"
"Boom!!" The sphere exploded in mid-air, instantly forming a tremor explosion domain with a diameter of a hundred meters!
Space within the domain twisted wildly; ice and rock were pulverized into fine dust.
And the destructive tremors, lasting for ten seconds, made it difficult for Kuzan to even maintain his elementalized state, his ice crystal body constantly disintegrating and reassembling.
"It's not over yet!" Gern Quake Flashed behind him, his right fist suddenly drawn back to his waist.
A vibrating vortex condensed at his fist, and space collapsed under the compression, emitting a groaning hum.
The next second, his straight punch shot out like a railgun!
"Black Tremor: Star Piercer!"
Wherever the punch traveled, space shattered inch by inch, and a thousand-meter cylindrical tremor blast pierced through the entire iceberg; Kuzan's ice wall defense was torn apart like thin paper!
And the shockwave's momentum did not diminish, forcing the knocked-back Kuzan to adjust his posture while simultaneously...
His left hand, as he slid, swept across the sea, creating a constantly freezing trench.
At the same time, Gern's figure suddenly blurred, high-frequency vibrating particles causing him to enter a state of molecular transition, transforming into a pale afterimage as he charged forward.
Space twisted and collapsed behind him, the air was torn into a vacuum tunnel, and the freezing created a second abyss by the aftershock!
"Wh-...? !" Facing the Quake Flash, Kuzan's Observation Haki, like everyone else's, failed!
As his pupils suddenly contracted, his vision was already filled with a blinding pale light, the only thing he could clearly see were those scarlet eyes!
"Black Tremor....." Gern's fist was wrapped in dark purple Haoshoku lightning, flowing Armament Haki covered it like a liquid, and the compressed "high-frequency tremor core" inside emitted a destructive hum.
"Instant.....Prison!!!"
Unfortunately, just as Gern's fist was about to strike Kuzan, an extreme cold burst forth!
"Ice Age · Eternal Coffin!" Kuzan's ice crystal body suddenly disintegrated, transforming into a sky full of ice mist.
Gern's fist only penetrated an ice sculpture substitute that had instantly condensed.
The true Kuzan had appeared a hundred meters in the air, his arms crossed, and freezing air cascaded down like a waterfall.
Both the sea surface and the island's entire coastline instantly froze, the ice spreading towards Gern at a visible speed.
Water molecules in the air condensed into billions of ice crystals, sealing off all escape routes like a blizzard!
For a moment, Gern's Quake Flash path was completely sealed.
Ice crystals coiled around his limbs like living things, trying to drag him into an eternal frozen hell.
"Has it even started to affect things at a molecular level?" Gern grinned, his entire body's Armament Haki boiling, and a tremor wave erupted from within him.
"Heaven Quake · Shattered Realm!"
"Boom!!" The ice coffin exploded, but Kuzan's offensive had no intention of stopping.
"Ice Thorn · Divine Spear Forest!" Countless ice crystal spears suddenly erupted from the frozen sea surface, each tip glowing with a faint blue cold light.
Like a phalanx of spears, they stabbed at Gern from all directions!
Gern clashed his fists, and a spherical tremor wave erupted, shattering most of the ice spears, but a few still broke through his defense.
Leaving deep, bone-visible wounds on his side and shoulder, but the blood solidified from the cold before it could flow out.
"Tsk..." He gritted his teeth, shattering the ice spears, and looked up at Kuzan, only to find that his opponent's figure had already vanished.
At this moment, Kuzan appeared behind Gern, his right arm completely crystallized into ice, forming a giant ice blade, which he brought down fiercely!
"Too slow!!" Just as the ice blade was about to strike, Gern's Observation Haki had already predicted everything.
He spun his body violently, his right fist, imbued with high-frequency tremor waves, slamming into the ice blade.
"Bang—Snap!!" The giant ice blade shattered the moment of contact, and Kuzan's pupils also suddenly constricted.
And Gern had already retreated three steps using the recoil, his left fist drawn back to his waist, compressing all his power wildly!
"Take this punch, and take it well!" Flowing Armament Haki coiled around his left arm like liquid, and tremor particles were compressed to their limit at his fist.
The air was squeezed out with an ear-splitting hum, and space even began to twist and collapse!
"Supreme....Wave Fist!!!"
"Boom!!!!" The moment the punch was unleashed, the air on the entire island was sucked dry.
A pale tremor wave, dozens of meters in diameter, pierced through the battlefield, pulverizing everything in its path!
After a long while, the smoke slowly cleared, revealing Kuzan kneeling on one knee, blood trickling from his mouth, his ice crystal armor covered in cracks, but his eyes were colder than the arctic wind.
"Ha..." He slowly stood up, freezing air condensing into new glaciers beneath his feet.
"Now that's what a 'monster' should look like."
